June 25, 2013

The celebrated Brooklyn record shop Dope Jams lost its lease on bustling Myrtle Avenue—and has decided to move its entire operation to Oak Hill, about a 30-mile drive from Hudson... (A friend reports stumbling upon “about 200 hipsters dancing in the street” of the sleepy Greene County village during their grand reopening a couple of weekends ago.)

January 18, 2012

The Albany Times-Unionreports that appointed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (formerly of Greenport) is siding with Hollywood and music industry lobby groups over, well, pretty much everyone else when it comes to internet censorship. The PIPA and SOPA bills in Congress have inspired numerous sites (from Wikipedia to Boing Boing to Reddit) to go "dark" for the day. More than a passive supporter, Gillibrand actually co-sponsored PIPA in the Senate.

As if to illustrate what such censorship might be like, a reader reports that comments about these bills were being erased from Gillibrand's Facebook page, though now it appears they are coming too fast and furious for monitors to keep up with.

Public outcry has already caused some initial supporters, such as hosting provider Go Daddy, to withdraw support from these measures (which would help rich entertainment businesses eke out a modest improvement in profit, at the expense of free speech). A former attorney for Big Tobacco, Gillibrand has a history of changing her noxious positions if there is enough pressure: she formerly opposed gay marriage, and held anti-immigrant positions such as making English the "official" U.S. language.

But such pressure has rarely come from Hudson Valley Democrats, who have tended to value their personal access to a "local" politician over their own political principles. Will Columbia County Dems hold Kirsten's feet to the fire on this huge issue?